Friday, 07 December 2007

The Ecology of Engrams

encoding in neural tissue
that provides a physical basis for the persistence of memory; a memory trace (1)

E·col·o·gy [i-kol-uh-jee]– noun

branch of biology dealing
with relations and interactions between organisms and their environment,
including other organisms (2)

I believe the concept of the individual brand engram for the
purposes of marketing communications is redundant. I believe that a truer reflection of brands
can be found by examining the dynamics of engram herds within a population.

1. The Myth of the Isolated Engram

The emergence of neuroscience has informed us that brands
are not definitive established entities. Rather they are ideas. An
ever-changing and dynamic concept of meanings and associations held – amongst millions
of others (4) – within our minds. As Wendy
Gordon puts it, “a brand in memory is a totality of stored synaptic connections
between neurones … gradually built up through the combination of many past
experiences and ongoing current encounters with a brand” (5). The term engram – coined originally by
Richard Semon in 1904 – refers to this ‘memory trace’ (6) within which a brand is
held.

Two key properties emerge from this concept:

First, the brand-as-engram is largely malleable and open to
influence. Whilst marketers would hold
that this gives them remit to leverage this set of associations thru
advertising and other means, the reality is quite different;

The stimuli we receive don’t uniformly alter the
engram. Daniel Schacter notes that; “our
memory systems are built so that we are likely to remember what is most
important to us” (7). Not all stimulus is
created equal, as Willmott and Nelson observe; “ in a networked society, where
people not only have more contacts but rely on them more for advice and support
… personal recommendations, and recriminations, have more weight” (8). In other words brand engrams are – by their
very nature – most open to influence by other people. Brand engrams are most open to influence by
other engrams.

The second property to emerge from the brand-as-engram concept
is that because engrams are formed from different experiences in different
individual’s heads, no two engrams can be the identical. As Wendy Gordon puts it; “two people can
never experience an identical set of encounters with a brand, and therefore
their brand engrams will be different” (9).

So brand engrams are mostly open to influence by other engrams,
each of which is unique; the concept of the isolated and definitive brand
engram is therefore a myth.

Brands aren’t individual ideas, but herds of ideas, within a
population. Herds that over time will grow
or shrink, become more disparate or move more tightly together, or that become
more or less consistent; all as a result of their environment that includes
other engrams. It is this latter facet
of the engram herd – consistency – upon which this submission will focus.

2. The Importance of the Consistent Herd

Key to successful marketing of a brand is to have a
consistent engram herd, with consistent meanings and values associated with a
brand. As Wendy Gordon points out, “new entrants to established product
categories require an enormous financial investment to build these values,
which ensure that a target group of consumers are able to share a similar pattern
of specific belief system about a brand” (10).

There are several reasons why consistency of engram
throughout a herd is crucial; as a shared language for word of mouth, as a consistent
reference for self-identity, and within the concept of transactive memory:

2.1 The importance of consistent herd in Word of mouth epidemics

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes what he
calls ‘the law of the few’ and describes how it was beneficial to the spreading
of Hush Puppies from a few individuals in New York’s East Village to the
mainstream American malls; “The law of the few says the answer is that one of
these exceptional people [the few] found out about the trend and through social
connections and energy and enthusiasm and personality spread the word about
Hush Puppies” (11).

But what the malls of mainstream America depended upon, what made
the spread of the idea commercial on a large scale, was the creation and
existence of an engram herd which consistently adopted Hush Puppies as cool. Gladwell’s ‘exceptional people’ may spread a
message, but once tipped, it requires consistency of an engram throughout the
herd to hold, and maintain it.

And what any individual relies upon when receiving or
transmitting messages within a word of mouth epidemic is a consistent frame of
reference throughout that herd, a consistent language, a consistent engram on
which to build.

The point is backed up by Caroline Whitehall who – in
describing tactics to reduce marketing inertia – notes that “most of us are
only likely to change behaviour if there is evidence of a larger movement
emerging” (12). What this tactic relies
upon is a consistent understanding throughout the herd of what that larger
movement means; in order to create meaningful understanding of what adopting
that group idea or behaviour entails.

2.2 The role of the consistent herd in communicating self-identity

Heath and Potter observe that “what we are all really after
is not individuality, it is distinction, and distinction is achieved not by
being different, but by being different in a way that makes us recognisable as
members of an exclusive club” (13).

This construction of identity is achieved in various ways, the
adoption and presentation of brands to others being one. We rely on the meanings and associations of
the brands we choose to communicate something about ourselves, what Daniel
Dennett calls ‘centres of narrative gravity’ (14).

The creation and communication of identity is wholly
dependent on this centre of gravity, this consistency amongst the herd of what
a brand means and the associations it therefore imparts to the individual who
bears it. Only with consistency
throughout the herd, other people carrying the engram are immediately aware of
what – for example – wearing a t-shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch, or Armani,
or Bathing Ape, imparts to the wearer.

Without consistency of meaning the message is at best
diffused and at worst lost; the brand less effectively contributes to
identity. Wendy Gordon notes that “A
brand is metaphor for a complex pattern of associations” (15). Without consistency of engrams across the
herd, that metaphor is meaningless.

2.3 The need for a consistent herd for a functioning transactive
memory

A final example of the value of herd consistency is a
concept developed by Daniel Wenger of the University of Virginia and described by
Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point; that of Transactive Memory. “When we talk about memory, we aren’t just
talking about ideas and impressions and facts stored inside our heads. An awful lot of what we remember is actually
stored inside outside our brains … we store information with other people” (16).

This ‘outside’ information is encoded within and amongst
engrams, many of which will be held within those of brand engrams. For example when we talk about Live Aid with
people who also hold that engram, we may be reminded of information about the
concert and the events surrounding it that we may have forgotten. We recall that the event happened as well as
those specifics most pertinent to us within our own individual engrams, but we
expect and require the herd engram to hold the greater body of information and
detail of that brand.

It is in many ways a concept analogous to that of the Wisdom
of Crowds, and idea James Surowiecki expounds in his book of the same name:
“under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are
often smarter than the smartest people in them … chasing the expert is a
mistake, and a costly one at that. We should stop hunting and ask the crowd” (17).

The same could be said of a marketer wishing to understand
how a brand is perceived; stop hunting a ‘typical’ individual engram; no such
thing exists. Start by understanding the
nature and dynamics of the engram herd as a whole, in which the greater and
truer reflection of the brand can be found.

3. Case Study – Articulating eBay’s engram herd

One brand that has seen a chasm develop within its engram
herd is eBay, a brand that is seeing its growth slow (18). Existing heavy users hold very positive
associations – both with the complexity of the site and the community around it. But a great many of the engram herd have
lapsed from use of eBay, citing that it’s too complicated and riskier than
conventional online purchasing (19).

These are two very different centres of narrative
gravity. And they’re in direct conflict. I’d suggest that it is partly this conflict
within the herd that is resulting firstly in the slowed growth that eBay is
currently experiencing, and secondly in decreasingly effective marketing
communications. Put simply,
communications are failing to reflect, and therefore resonate with, the herd
engram footprint.

Saying ‘buy this on eBay’ (20) isn’t indicative of the heavy
user positive engram gravity well; to heavy users it feels patronising. Nor does it address the negative engram
gravity well typical of lapsed users who feel that eBay is complicated and
risky.

To test this theory, I conducted some proprietary quantitative
research amongst 88 randomly selected consumers (from my Facebook friends!) and
asked them to indicate whether or not a range of words applied to eBay as well
as three other brands within the online commerce space – Amazon, Play.com and
HMV.co.uk.

Figure 1 shows the extent to which various associations were
made with each of the four brands. So
for example across the 88 respondents 70 connected the association ‘affordable’
with Amazon, 56 respondents with Play.com, 46 with eBay etc. By pooling the associations we get an
indication of the herd engram footprint for these brands, indicating the extent
to which these four brands overlap with each other.

Figure 1: herd engram associations by brand 21

But when each brand is examined individually, a much more
distinct herd engram emerges. Figure 2
shows only the eBay data, ranked by association.

Figure 2: eBay herd engram associations ranked strongest
first 21

Big, community, choice and affordable emerge top (reflecting
the positive gravity well), as do time-consuming and risky (the negative
gravity well). In an individual engram
this picture wouldn’t have emerged, the gravity well of that individual would
have dominated. Only by looking at the herd
engram are the range of (in eBay’s case less consistent) associations observed.

But the real indication of the relative strength of herd
consistency comes when the brand herd engrams are compared. Figure 3 shows each of the four brand herd
engram footprints as ranked by each brand independently of association (i.e. the
first point on the x-axis is the strongest association for each of the four
brands).

Amazon’s herd engram footprint has most connections
concentrated across fewer associations. In short its herd is the most consistent. Amazon’s herd more easily and implicitly
recognise what its individual members mean when they mention Amazon or when it
is used as a display of self-identity.

The challenge for eBay is to use its marketing
communications to help generate consistency across its herd engram. At present those carrying the engram are
forming very different memory traces orientated around different experiences of
the product, ensuring that broadcast communications resonate less well with the
collective associations of eBay’s herd.

The challenge for all advertisers is to acknowledge the
existence of the herd brand engram and accept its truer reflection of the brand
as it exists across the memory traces of consumers. Articulate it. Measure its consistency. Identify the foci for the gravity wells that
will influence the currents and eddies of the conversations and interactions –
the ecology – of the herd engram.